


Leave nobody behind

by orphan_account



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Thomas gets shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 12:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13524531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Well, I loved The Death Cure!After seeing it, I felt the compelling urge to fill in some of the blanks of the end of the movie. I wrote it during my lunch break and it hasn't been edited, so all flaws are mine. The story is based on what I remember about the movie.This is a hurt/comfort story about Thomas, told from the POV of his friends and others. If you have seen the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about. I'm a big fan of hurt!Thomas.This story contains spoilers! beware if you haven't seen the movie.The Major Character Death refers to the one(s) you know are going to happen if you've seen the movie or read the book.Hope you enjoy it, please leave a note if you did.thanks.





	Leave nobody behind

Leave nobody behind  
A fill in the blanks for The Maze Runner – The Death Cure.  
Be careful: spoilers for the movie! This story focuses on the people and events you didn’t see, starting with the final moment between Newt and Thomas, up until the moment that Thomas wakes up in Safe Haven.  
How did the others (his friends and Teresa) react and experience what happened to Thomas after Newt’s death?  
Nothing but friendship, love and deep care between the characters in this story. No focus on romance. Thomas gets hurt a lot in the movie, so that is the focal point really of this story.

Leave nobody behind

They stood there completely shocked. It was all they could do really after the events that just unfolded.  
Newt lay dead at their feet. Newt, their friend, was dead. His dark, black eyes stared into nothingness. Black goo poured out of his mouth and nose. Dark lines ran across his body, but they could see them mostly on his face, arms and hands. A knife stuck in his chest. There was nothing they could do for him.  
The group stared silently at Thomas, leaning over his best friend with in his eyes, slowly getting up and backing away from them, as if they had become the enemy. It wasn’t like that at all of course. Their friend and leader was in deep shock, traumatized over what just occurred.  
All of them knew what Thomas was going to do before he probably even knew it himself. They saw the guilt in his eyes from the way he stared at Newt’s body as if he willed him to come to life again. The realization that he had not been able to save his friend, struck him hard.  
Thomas was broken. Finally, after all the losses and all the kids that had not made it over the past months, Thomas was completely done. In his mind, his life was over. All fight had left his form; his face fell into an expression nobody had ever seen before, or maybe only when Chuck had died. Even then though, it had not been as bad as this time. This time, Thomas was completely and utterly broken.  
Brenda didn’t stop him when he walked away from her and the others with a determined, yet devastated, look in his eyes. She knew he was going to go to Teresa, knowing he had taken the other girl’s words to heart. She had said for the whole city to hear that he was the one who could save them. That Brenda was the living proof of this. And Teresa was right too. Brenda hadn’t wanted to admit it, but she had known deep down inside that Thomas’ blood was special. Why else could he have cured her with only a small portion of whatever it was that Mary had drawn out of it?  
Brenda hadn’t wanted to admit it though. She didn’t want Thomas to put himself in danger, to sacrifice himself for the rest of the world. She had been selfish, wanting to keep him close and safe with them. She knew now that this was over too. Thomas had lost his best friend and with that the drive of what had pushed him for so long.  
Thomas was all about his friends. He even went to hell and back for total strangers if needs be. They had saved many kids from WCKD and he had relentlessly pursued his ultimate goal: to stop WCKD and Ava Paige. In the end though, even that goal hadn’t really mattered anymore. He had wanted to save his friends and lead them to freedom, to a life in Safe Haven, where WCKD would only become a bad dream.  
Thomas was all about his friends and he had just lost the one he held dearest. So he left. He left them to go to Teresa and offer her his life and Brenda didn’t stop him this time. In her thoughts and dreams, Brenda had made plenty of room for a possible happy future with Thomas, but she knew she could never have it under these circumstances.  
She loved Thomas enough to let him go. She would never be able to convince him to leave with them now and save himself, not with Newt lying dead at their feet. With Newt gone, Thomas had no urge to save himself left. He just wanted to get it over with. If only she had run faster. If only Newt had been able to hold on just a little bit more. If only …  
Brenda knew Thomas could have saved Newt with his blood, just like he was able to save her, but he could not have done it by giving him just his blood. He needed to get the cure extracted from it. The only persons who could do that, were Ava Paige and Teresa. He knew that Teresa wanted to save the world no matter what, even if it meant killing him in the process. Even if it meant killing the man she possibly loved. That’s what Thomas needed right now. He needed her to stop his pain. Thomas was willing to sacrifice himself to stop his emotional pain.  
“No more,” she thought she heard him whisper, before he took off and left them alone with Newt’s body. "No more deaths.”  
Fry and Minho sat by Newt’s body, both looking just as broken as Thomas had. They were the last four and now they were down to three. Brenda was not part of the original gang; she felt she had no right at this moment to sit by Newt’s side and mourn him.  
Until Jorge suddenly showed up by their side, became the fatherly figure he always had been to her, took her by the hand and made her kneel down too, next to Minho and Fry. Immediately Fry took her by the hand and made her feel part of their band of brothers. Tears sprung in her eyes.  
“He was your friend too,” Fry whispered, “and we will give him a proper burial. That, I swear.”  
Minho looked up with tears in his eyes at Fry’s words. He shared a gaze with the former cook and they both nodded, knowing they had to do this. They would not leave him there.  
“Jorge, would you be as kind as to bring Newt’s body back to the Berg?” Fry whispered hoarsely.  
“I will,” Jorge vowed. “But you have to come with me. You can’t stay here.”  
“I’m going after him,” Minho said, getting up. “Newt goes with you; we go after Thomas.”  
“Me too,” Fry replied, looking around for the gun that no longer lay there. He didn’t want to pull the knife out of Newt’s chest and use it as a weapon, but if needs be, that was what the cook would do.  
“No, Thomas wouldn’t want that,” Brenda stopped them both. “He is going in there for her, but he will not want you to do the same as he did for you. If you do and you get killed, all of this was for nothing, Minho.”  
“So we just sit back and let him be killed instead?” Minho snapped.  
“No, we give him the chance to go to her,” Brenda whispered.  
“To what purpose?”  
“To save them all. To give her his blood and to have her take what she needs to get her cure, so she can save the people who need it the most,” Brenda spoke gently.  
“What for?” Minho shouted. “Have they ever shown us any compassion? Why would we care about the world? Brenda, we need to get him now!”  
“Brenda’s right,” Gally said, rubbing a hand over his crew-cut head. “God, I always knew there was something special about Thomas, but I never thought it would come to this. Thomas is the key to everything, Minho. If Teresa is right and he cured Brenda, then his blood was what they needed all along. Thomas knows that now too. He knows he could have saved Newt. This is his penance and we should give him the chance to do this.”  
“He’ll never come out of there alive and you know it,” Minho retorted angrily. “I refuse to let him be killed!”  
“He won’t be killed. Paige won’t do that now she knows he’s the key,” Brenda spoke softly. “Paige will keep him close; she’ll help him as he will help her.”  
“By becoming their lab rat,” Fry remarked.  
“Teresa won’t allow that,” Brenda spoke softly.  
“How can you be so sure of that?” Minho asked.  
“Because she loves him as much as we do,” the girl reacted softly. “She will get her blood and her sample and he will come back to us.”  
“Well, then I’m going to be damn sure that he does,” Minho said, moving towards the entrance of the building.  
Before Brenda could stop him, the former Runner walked over to the WCKD building and took a first step inside. Only to be thrown back when a blast hit him straight in the face.

******

The shot rang loudly in Teresa’s ears. Startled and shocked, she looked up and then began running.  
Thomas is dead. He’s dead!  
That’s what ran through her mind when she rushed down the stairs towards the large hallway. Before, she had an urgent feeling that Thomas had listened to her pleads. She could feel it. She had started running to the ground floor after her plead to listen to her, hoping to find Thomas coming towards her.  
If he knew he could save Newt with his blood, he would do it. He would come to her and tell her to draw his blood, to make the cure so he could save his best friend. Teresa wanted to save him too, more than anything. She didn’t want people to die anymore. She had it in her hands. She had the cure and she knew what she had to do now. Thomas would be their key. She wanted him to see that too, to become part of her vision. They could lead a good life together; they could be happy. And he just had to give blood, so she could extract the cure and then find a way to replicate it into a medicine that the world could benefit from. Then they would be free and re-join their friends.  
Teresa knew it could be worked out. Until the gunshot.  
“Thomas!” she screamed when she saw the teenager lying deadly still on the ground in the hallway. “Thomas!”  
A figure loomed over him, preventing her from seeing him properly. Her heart turned cold when she knew who it was. Janson. Of course, always Janson, who hated Thomas more than anything in the world. He had killed him. Finally, the man had gotten his wish.  
“Thomas!” Teresa screamed, trying to get a good look at him.  
“Stop shouting,” Janson snapped, turning towards her as he let go of Thomas.  
The man took one step back to allow her a full view of Thomas. What she saw next, shocked her to the core. Next to Thomas lay a familiar figure dressed in white on the tiled floor. Ava Paige. Her dead eyes stared into nothingness; a large red circle had formed on the front and back of her clothes. A bullet had taken her life. A bullet coming out of the two guns now in Janson’s hands.  
For one brief moment Teresa believed Thomas had shot her, but she shook her head slightly, refusing to believe it. Thomas would never do this. He wouldn’t stoop so low, even though he must have hated her guts for a long time.  
Next to Paige lay Thomas, still as quiet as she had found him. His face was turned to his left; his eyes were closed; his pallor was ghastly white. He didn’t move, still dead to the world. Teresa knelt by his side and pressed her fingers to his throat. His uneven breathing shocked her, but at least he had a strong pulse and was still alive. She knew though he must have been given a strong drug.  
“I sedated him,” Janson spoke to her. “Help me with him.”  
“Help you? Why?” Teresa almost screamed. “You killed Paige!”  
“Would you believe me when I said your boy did that?” Janson smirked. A look of disbelief ran over Teresa’s face, making the man snort. “Ah well,” he shrugged, “who cares about her anyhow? She was half dead anyhow; she had given up on his, can you believe that? She was going to run away and leave the Last City to its own devices. She never really saw the true picture, now did she? Always looked only at herself.”  
“And what true picture is that?” Teresa asked in tears while she closed Ava’s eyelids, praying in silence for the woman who had taken her under her wings.  
“This brave new world is not meant for everyone, dear Teresa,” Janson went on. “It never was, not truly. We screwed Earth up ourselves by ignoring the signals for years. People have been dying for years, before we desperately starting looking for a cure for our stupid misdoings. Well, you found that cure and you’re the one who’s going to save the world with it. You and your friend Thomas here. You believe in the cause. Hell, you even sacrificed your own friends for it.”  
“Why did you sedate him?” Teresa asked, concerned that Thomas wouldn’t wake up.  
“Do you really think he would go willingly to you?” Janson snorted. “He held a gun to Paige’s face. He would have killed her, I’m sure of it. I had to stop him, or he would have killed me too.”  
“He came back for us,” Teresa shouted, pulling Thomas’ head protectively in her lap. Her hand stroked his hair. “He wanted to help, he listened to my pleading. He wants to save Newt. Where is Newt?”  
“Dead,” Janson spoke coolly as he gazed at his watch. “We don’t have much time left before his buddies come to the rescue. Knowing them, they’re already on the way. We need to get a move on.”  
“To do what?”  
“Stall time of course,” Janson smiled. “You do want your cure, don’t you?”  
Teresa hesitated.  
“Do you, or do you not want your cure?” Janson snapped. “Or should I kill you too and get someone else to do it?”  
“I –“Teresa hesitated. “What are you going to do with Thomas once you get it?”  
Janson smirked. “Come on, Teresa. Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for dear Thomas now. After all, you’re the one who convinced him to come back here. You worked on his conscience and got him to forego his freedom so he could save us all. So don’t tell me you love him or care for him, knowing that he would become our lab rat for the rest of his life. After what you’ve put Minho and many of the other Immunes through, you couldn’t have possibly suddenly grown a conscious?”  
Teresa bit her lip, trying to recapture a grip on the situation. Finally, she shook her head.  
“I want a cure.”  
“Good. You’ve got it.”  
Janson tucked the two guns in his pockets and ran to the front entrance, where he threw two of the small bombs the guards wore with them at all times. Teresa leaned over Thomas to protect him from the sound, even if he was still out cold.  
Janson returned then. He shoved Teresa bluntly out of the way and picked up Thomas as if he weighed nothing. He lifted the teenager over his shoulder, didn’t wait for Teresa and started moving towards the elevators. Teresa had no choice but to follow.  
Upstairs, in the lab where Teresa now held the solution to the cure, Janson unmercifully shoved Thomas onto one of the orange slabs, tied him up to prevent him from moving and turned to Teresa, who stood silently watching the scene unfold. Thomas was still out cold, which scared her. She hadn’t expected him to be out of it for so long, but then again, maybe that was a good thing for now. She could experiment on him without him ever feeling.  
Janson took out his gun and nodded at her, ordering her this way to get to work.  
“I did my thing, you do yours,” he snapped, making sure she saw the weapon.  
Teresa wasn’t scared of dying. She never was. But Janson wasn’t pointing the gun at her. He was aiming it direct at Thomas. There was no doubt in her mind then. He gave her the choice: Either to work with a very much alive Thomas, or to work with blood from a dead man.  
Quietly, she started to work.

******

The whole building was on fire.  
That’s the first thing Brenda saw when they stood near the Berg and watched the city go straight to hell. Everywhere were flames, fires and explosions. It wouldn’t be long before WCKD would fall too and Thomas was still in there.  
When they tried to get in after the explosion, they couldn’t. The entire entrance was lit in flames. Inside the building, fires were starting, because of the outcasts who were bombing it. They didn’t stop, even when they shouted at them to do so.  
Next to Brenda stood Gally, startled as he watched the situation unfold. They were supposed to bring down WCKD, but they had destroyed the whole place instead. Gally didn’t want to think about the thousands of people dying. He just wanted to focus on Thomas.  
“I made a mistake,” Brenda muttered as she looked helplessly at Jorge. “I thought he would be safe in there.”  
“Janson,” Minho spoke through gritted teeth.  
It told them enough.  
“Teresa will keep him safe,” Fry suddenly spoke gently and softly, as he always did. “She won’t let him be harmed.”  
“What can we do?” Vince asked, looking at Jorge and the many kids who sat quietly in their seats, waiting to get to safety.  
“We won’t leave him behind. I’m going to fly up to the building; we can get in from the top and get him the hell out of there,” Jorge replied.  
“We have to think about the kids too,” Minho remarked quietly. “Thomas would never endanger them. We can’t take them with us in the Berg.”  
“I know a place where they can be safe,” Gally suggested. “Let’s bring them there, get the Berg and bring our boy home to safety.”  
Minho looked up at the kid who once tried to kill Thomas, but ended up killing Chuck instead.  
“You mean that?”  
“Hell yeah,” Gally said. “You know I’m not who I used to be. Thomas taught me that. He was right in the end. We didn’t belong to the Maze; we belong to the Safe Haven.”  
“Then let’s do it.”  
The group of friends hurried the kids inside the Berg and brought them to a safe location where they could stay while the others flew back to the Last City. Newt’s body was carefully lifted too. Vince and Jorge looked quite serious as they prepared to go back, even offering Minho, Fry, Brenda and Gally not to tag along. They wouldn’t listen of course.  
Before long, they flew back over the broken walls of the Last City and headed straight for the building on fire, where WCKD once reigned, but now came to its end.  
“I see him!” Jorge shouted.  
Brenda looked out the window, staring in shock at the two figures on top of the building. The first thing she noticed was Thomas. Thomas, who could barely stand on his feet. Thomas, who was bleeding, hurt and dying. She could almost smell the blood on him, as if he was standing right in front of her.  
“We don’t have much time,” Brenda whispered.

******

The efforts to get Thomas on board of the Berg were almost too much for him. Brenda saw it, the blood on his shirt and the way he held his stomach. He had been shot, she knew. Shot or stabbed. He was dying and Teresa knew it too.  
The girl who had betrayed them used all of her strength to save Thomas. She could have easily saved herself; she could have abandoned him and jump on the aircraft, but she didn’t, just like she didn’t even attempt to save herself. She just stood there, not even making the final jump that might have been her only chance of survival.  
When Thomas screamed, Teresa had this strange, knowing smile on her face. I’m sorry, that smile said. I’m so sorry I did this to you. Thomas became really quiet after that. He knew. They had said their goodbyes.  
When Teresa fell to her death, Thomas cried. Brenda did too.  
Startled, she looked as Thomas was gingerly lifted onto his back, only to reveal the truly gruesome extent of his wounds. As if on cue, Thomas looked briefly at him before passing out in their arms. They tried to shake him awake, but he wouldn’t respond. He was gone to them and Brenda knew they could still stand to lose him.

******

As the Berg took off, several hands came to the rescue.  
Thomas was gently lifted to the middle of the aircraft, so that they had space to work on him. Vince took the lead, but he was helped by Brenda, who showed her strength once more. Minho and Fry just placed their hands on Thomas’ legs, hoping that he would feel their presence.  
The teenager was unconscious, on the brink of death even. He was unresponsive, didn’t move and didn’t react to any stimuli. He was completely out of it and they were going to lose him.  
“I need more bandages and cloth to stop the bleeding,” Vince shouted. “Jorge, hurry up. I need to get that bullet out of him, but I can’t do it here in these circumstances. He’s burning up.”  
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Jorge shouted back.  
“The place where we hid the kids has a medical facility,” Gally said, his hands on Thomas’ wound. “I know it’s not much, but we have enough there to get that bullet out of him.”  
“Got it,” Jorge reacted.  
“Thomas, wake up,” Brenda whispered, placing her hand on his face. She couldn’t stand to lose him now, not after all they had gone through. He saved her life; she had to save his now. “You can’t die on us now. Please don’t leave us.”  
As if he heard her, Thomas stirred and briefly opened his eyes. He probably didn’t even see her, but he had a smile on his face, before he sunk back into the deep. The very deep.  
“We’re going to lose him!” Vince shouted to Jorge. “Step on it.”  
“We’re here,” Jorge replied, landing the Berg professionally and gently enough for all.  
“Come on, help me pick him up,” Vince ordered Minho, pointing at Thomas’ legs. “Fry, push as hard as you can on the wound to stem the bleeding. Gally, run ahead and prep the medical room. We only have minutes to spare.”  
“Got it,” Gally said, running ahead with Brenda as they rushed inside the compound where the twenty-eight rescued kids waited in silence. When they saw what was going on, how Vince, Minho and Fry came after them carrying Thomas’ limp body, the kids sprang into action too.  
“I can help,” one boy said. “I saw surgical procedures at WCKD.”  
“Come with me,” Gally ordered, racing inside as he fiercely prayed they still had the equipment inside he hoped for.  
He was right. A former small doctor’s practice had been used to help the ill and was still pretty much intact, including a metal slab in the middle of the room. The kid immediately went to work, gathering equipment, while Gally and Brenda rummaged through the medical leftovers, hoping they would find what they needed.  
“I’ve got medication, sedatives and scalps here,” Brenda said.  
“Can we boil some water here?” the kid asked Gally. He nodded and pointed to the corner, where electricity still worked and water could be heated up quickly.  
“I found towels and cloth too,” Brenda said.  
“Good, bring everything here,” Gally ordered at the same time Vince walked in with Thomas in his arms. The teenager’s legs were still being carried by Minho, while Fry’s hands, soaked in Thomas’ blood, still pushed down hard on his abdomen.  
“Put him on the table,” Gally said.  
Vince looked around at all that Gally had to offer, smiled briefly and nodded. “All of this stuff could pretty much save his life right now. You did good, Gally.”  
“Let’s get that bullet out of him first and see if he makes it,” the other teenager replied with a frown as he tilted Thomas’ shirt and eyed the injury. “The bullet is probably lodged in his stomach. We only get one chance to do this properly, or he’s gone. This kid can help.”  
“Alright.” Vince looked around. “All of you, except for Gally and the kid, get out. The lesser people we have in here, the better.”  
“I’ll stay for the bandaging,” Brenda said. “I’m used to this sort of thing, I can sow him up and make sure he doesn’t bleed to death afterward.”  
“He’s already half-emptied,” Vince frowned. “Let’s get to it then.”  
With the others waiting outside, Vince, Brenda, Gally and the boy focused solely on Thomas, knowing they would only get one shot to save their friend. For Vince, that was enough for now.

******

What seemed like hours later, they emerged with a serious expression on their faces. Minho and Fry shared a glance, knowing for sure Thomas was already gone.  
“We managed to pull him through,” Vince said, “but it’ll be touch and go. We’re pumping him full of medication right now to stop infections, but it’s going to be a rough ride. He has an extremely high fever. On top of that, we can’t stay here. We need to get out of here before anyone finds us here. There’s a new world out there now and we don’t know what’s going to happen.”  
“How far is it to the camp?” Minho asked troubled.  
“About two hours on the Berg.”  
“Can we move him?”  
“If we’re really careful and lift him on a board, we should be able to do so,” Brenda said, looking around.  
“Already fixed that,” Fry spoke broadly, pointing at a wooden board that could easily hold Thomas’ body. “Let’s do it then.”  
The group focused in unison on lifting Thomas’ ill body carefully on the board, strapping him down with ropes. Brenda couldn’t help but place her hand on his forehead, feeling how warm he was under her touch.  
“He’s burning up.”  
“We’re doing all we can,” Vince spoke through gritted teeth. “I just don’t know if it will be enough.”  
“It has to be,” Minho reacted. “Thomas is a fighter. He has to make it.”  
“He might lack the will,” Brenda muttered. “After Newt and Teresa.”  
“He’s still got us,” Fry said, speaking louder than they were used to by him. “That has to be enough. He’ll listen to me. To us. He’ll hear what we have to say.”  
Gently, the group made their way from the medical room back to the Berg, where Thomas was strapped in tight, still lying quietly on the wooden board they had used as a stretcher. He was mumbling quietly, whispering Newt’s name, followed by Teresa’s name, then switching to Fry, Minho and Brenda. The girl smiled weakly as she heard her name being spoken. Fry took her hand and squeezed her fingers.  
“You see?” he whispered. “He has people to stick around for.”  
Brenda smiled as they lifted off the ground and moved silently into the skies. It had to be enough. It just had to be.

Six days, a long boat trip and many, many feverish dreams later, it was.

The End


End file.
